The present invention relates to hydrogen production, and more particularly to hydrogen production by high temperature steam electrolysis with improved efficiency and reduced cost.
Hydrogen is becoming an increasingly important fuel. Various processes have been developed for producing it including inter alia, steam reforming of natural gas and by coal gasification, and water electrolysis. Existing processes do, however, suffer from various disadvantages including relatively low efficiency and high production costs.
It is an object of the present invention to avoid or minimize one or more of the above-mentioned disadvantages.
It has now been found that by using a proton conducting electrolyte membrane, which is substantially non-permeable to oxide ions and to molecular gas, and is stable at high temperatures, it is possible to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen and at the same time separate the hydrogen from the oxygen.